Gaea’s Thorn cut through wood and vine as if it was barely there. I followed that with a bolt of lightning that arced between three more targets.
“Is this normal?” Cedric asked as he crushed another under hoof.
“This many? No,” I said. “Timberwolves usually don’t travel in packs bigger than ten.” There had to be three times that number.
Luckily, thanks to those toys Jynx made for the Junior Rangers, despite being caught by surprise we didn’t see a single death.
I looked over to see a trio of wolves trying to dig through a wall of hardened foam that filled the entrance to an alley. Rumble had deployed that, but now he and four others were trapped in one of the only dead end alleys in all Ponyville. To make things worse, there were a half dozen wolves between me and them.
Luckily, a prismatic blur shot in and slammed into them. Rainbow Dash had been helping lead ponies to safety, with a promise to come back. In usual Rainbow fashion, she didn’t leave us hanging.
With the three of us, together, the wolves seemed to decide it was no longer worth it and started to pull back. We pursued as far as the river, taking out another half dozen. Only about fifteen or so got away, but that was still more than I liked. A pack that size was dangerous.
Still, pursuing Timberwolves into the forest was far too dangerous. Even that close, the magic of the forest would regenerate them and make them stronger, faster, and more clever. Normally, that wasn’t such a big deal, as usually I wouldn’t be fighting more than three or four, but with this many, it was too much.
I would just have to let them go and prep more fire spells. I didn’t like fire spells. They were too dangerous, and were too prone to collateral damage. Still, if I made some water spells to go with them, I could limit the damage.
I sighed as I slowly made my way back to town. As I looked around town, I took solace in the fact that at least there hadn’t been a lot of damage to the town. Timberwolves weren’t that destructive, thankfully.
I walked up to the stone-like foam and took a vial of green liquid from my belt. I sprinkled a bit on it as I said, “It’s safe.”
The foam started to dissolve, revealing the ponies huddled behind. They had numerous cuts and bruises, but they were alive and well. Still, I checked them over.
At least three of the timberwolves were rot wolves; a dangerous subspecies of timberwolf whose bite was terribly necrotic and the rot can spread through a pony’s body in minutes. That meant every wound had to be checked.
“You did good, Rumble,” I said. “Ah’m proud of you.”
“I... I was so scared,” Rumber said, shaking still.
“Yet you still helped save these ponies. That’s the definition of courage,” I said, giving the colt a reassuring pat on the back.
I could tell he was still shaken, but at least that got a weak smile from him. “You think you can help these ponies to the hospital? Ah want them to get a once over by a doctor, just in case.”
“Y-yeah,” he said.
I gave one of the other ponies a glance, shooting my eyes down to the kid and back to them. They nodded, getting my message. Keep an eye on him.
Rumble led the ponies off toward the hospital. I would check on him later. Maybe I could convince the mayor to give him some kind of award.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of wings. I turned to see Twilight landing nearby. It was still weird seeing her flying around town, but about a month prior she was forced to reveal herself to the whole town in order to fix some crazy issue with her friends swapping cutie marks.
I was out of town at the time, so I’m not a hundred percent sure what actually happened, but it was a blessing, if you ask me, as most ponies still treated her the same as always. She was worried everyone in town would be bowing and groveling but, other than a few ponies, that wasn’t the case.
“How are things on this end?” she asked.
“Great. Only a few injuries and no fatalities,” I replied.
Twilight released a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I heard there were rot wolves.”
“Yeah,” I said, my joy fading slightly. “Harvest Moon will likely lose her leg, and Mister Mill will have a terrible scar on his side, but those were the worst.”
“Your Junior Rangers really proved their worth today,” Twilight said, assuringly. “I’ll be sending a report to mom. I expect she’ll be wanting to fund them from now on.”
I smiled at that. “So long as you tell her about Rumble.”
“Oh? What did he do?”
Naturally, the colt was hailed as a hero. He had a town wide celebration for his actions. The Wonderbolts even showed up to give the kid a medal. I thought his heart was going to explode when Spitfire gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Admittedly, the celebration was more for the lack of lost lives than just him and the Wonderbolts were already passing through. Still, he was the talk of the town.
The day after that, some ponies from Canterlot showed up to build a new Junior Rangers headquarters, and a couple were sent to observe how I manage things with the kids. There were plans to introduce a chapter to each of the high risk towns and they needed folks that could run them.
Jynx’s car also proved to be invaluable over the following weeks. With the speeds it could maintain, Applejack didn’t need to go through dangerous territory anymore to deliver to some of the more distant regions. That brought costs down, which brought prices down, which brought more customers. AJ was already asking about another car, as were several of the other farmers.
Thus, I was accompanying my very pregnant wife on a train to Fillydelphia to negotiate a deal with a manufacturing company that might be able to help produce the parts for them. Personally, I was mad that they couldn’t send someone to Ponyville and instead had Jynx have to travel despite her condition.
“I told you, I’m fine,” Jynx assured me. “Ponies can still travel up to ten months. Remember, we were a roving herd species. We evolved to stay mobile as long as possible.”
“Yeah, well, just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” I countered.
She giggled and gave me a kiss. “I’ll be fine. I brought a portable hoof massager.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Ah don’t remember anythin’ like that getting packed.”
She snuggled up to me. “That’s because it’s sitting right next to me.”
I chuckled. “Oh, so that’s the only reason you brought me, is it?”
Jynx huffed. “That’s not the only reason.” her expression turned sultry. “Also for sex.”
“You really are insatiable,” I said, pulling her in closer.
“And you’re not? I have pregnant mare hormones, what’s your excuse?” she teasingly demanded.
“Ah’m a guy?” I joked. “Nah. Honestly, Ah was never this active on Earth, so maybe it’s a tigerian thing?”
“Well, I’m just glad you’re willing to have fun with our friends,” Jynx said with a giggle. “I can’t keep up with you, even with my prego hormones and Fluttershy’s help.”
“So you won’t be surprised if Ah wanna go again,” I said with a low growl.
Jynx guffawed. “We’ve already done it twice this trip, and it’s only a two hour ride.”
“Your point?” I teased.
Jynx rolled her eyes. “I need to be able to walk, so how about I just suck you off?”
“Deal!”
We wandered through the streets of Fillydelphia, taking in the sights and trying to decide where we would go for dinner after Jynx finished her meeting. Filly was known for its larger than average omnivore/carnivore population, so there were a lot of places that catered to both of our diets. There were a lot of choices, but we still had a few hours to decide, so we weren’t in a rush.
“Ah, there it is,” Jynx said, pointing to a large building a couple blocks away.
The building served as both the main office building and factory, so at least we didn’t have to travel much more.
Jynx let out a huff. “Let’s hurry. My hooves are killing me.”
I spent most of the meeting spaced out. I really wasn’t good at that kind of dull, boring, bureaucratic stuff. I was a man of action. Thus, I don’t remember a damn thing that actually happened during the meeting.
What I was excited for, though, was our next stop. We left the offices and headed down to the production line. The stallion in charge barked some orders and we watched as the magic happened.
Metal, plastic, rubber, and crystal pieces started down various lines. Like a great Lego set, the pieces came together one after another. They slid, clicked, and welded into their places, slowly forming something greater.
Wheels connected to axels, which connected to a frame, which had the body attached. Slowly, but surely, what started as a mass of parts came together to form Equestria’s first commercial car.
That was the first time I really got a good look at the engine, too. At home, Jynx did most of her work in a small lab she rented out. I typically wasn’t allowed inside, due to the fact that most of her work is rather sensitive and I wasn’t exactly qualified to be around them.
The engine really looked nothing like an internal combustion engine like back on Earth. For one, it was more round. It also had wrought iron rods extending from the sides and turning upward where they would stick out of the hood of the car.
I didn’t know much about the thing, but I did know wrought iron was typically used to channel mana. Jynx explained that the car would pull mana from the environment to power the machine, and considering the rods weren’t attached to anything, it was safe to assume those were what they pulled the mana through.
Finally, the finished product rolled off the line in all its glory. It was a strange looking thing, looking more like a car like what would have been shown off at one of those ‘world of tomorrow’ showcases back in the 50’s. It was much rounder, with no corners, and was long and narrow. That made sense as ponies were longer and narrower than humans.
“Well, what do you think?” the foreman asked. “She up to your standards?”
Jynx waddled over and opened the door. SHe climbed inside and shortly after, the whirring of the magical motor echoed throughout the factory and Jynx pulled forward before stopping and backing it up.
“I’d say she does,” Jynx said and a cheer rose up throughout the factory.
The foreman laughed. “Well, you can see we were pretty invested in the thing. “Many of us really miss our cars back on Earth, you know, so we’re all excited to bring’em here. Especially ones that don’t have the same problems.”
“Yeah, just whole new ones!” a mare shouted from somewhere, getting a laugh out of everyone.
“Alright, Let’s get her finished up and ready for the reveal,” the foreman said. “We got a week to make sure she’s perfect. Get to work.”
Jynx climbed out of the car so another could take it to get finished.
“Considerin’ that was the first time you guys did that, it was pretty fast,” I noted.
The foreman and Jynx shared a knowing smirk before he said, “Well, we did have a bit of practice.”
I cocked an eyebrow at that before Jynx explained, “I sent them a little test to make sure they could handle the engines, so I had them build a smaller version.”
“It took us a couple tries, but we managed,” the foreman said.
Jynx added, “And, because I didn’t want a perfectly good engine to go to waste, I also asked them to make a little gift for you.”
That perked me up.
“Weld! Bring it out!” the foreman called.
I turned around to see a pony bringing out the absolute coolest motorcycle I had ever seen in real life. The closest thing I had seen to it was the motorcycle from the Final Fantasy movie. The good one. It had a long, broad front end, and a back end that was pretty much just wheel.
“Happy early birthday, honey,” Jynx said.
“Oh, you’re gettin’ all the hoof massages.”